The Golden Door
by eleanoralovesananias
Summary: America is hiding something. Only it's not a something, it's a someone. She is his pride and joy, his hero, the one he loves most in the world. But to his boss, she is a threat to national security. How long can he keep her safe? (Not the best summary, sorry.) First OC story. Please be gentle.


America came into my room, staggering under the weight of all the books he'd gotten for me from the library. The top of his Nantucket was just barely visible on the other side of the enormous stack. I giggled. "Dad, you didn't have to get all of them at _once_."

He poked his head out to one side. "I'm gonna be in China for the next month, little dude. Didn't want you to run out of places to travel while I'm gone, did I?"

I laughed again. I loved my dad so much. He worked so hard to make my life a good one, despite the strict terms on it. Despite the conditions it was under.

He bent over slowly, trying to set the stack of books neatly on my bed, but they toppled, and fifty of the thickest, heaviest ten-pound leather volumes the library had owned came hurtling towards my face.

I caught them easily with one hand.

America's sky-blue eyes met my own deeper cerulean ones, his lips pressed together to keep from trembling. I looked down, feeling guilt rise up in my throat.

Soon enough I felt my dad's warm arms around me. "Hey, it's not your fault, little dude," he told me. He always tells me this, and I know it's true, but I can't help feeling guilty for all the worry I cause him. I hardly ever move from my bed, never exercise, barely even walk around, all in the hopes of getting weaker, but my superhuman strength only seems to increase. At this point I could probably lift a car if I ever got a chance. I know he feels responsible for my being stuck in my room like this, but I really don't mind. I've never missed things like sunshine and fresh air; how can you miss things you've never experienced? Anyways, I love reading. Even if I could go outside, I'd probably spend most of my time reading anyway. I don't think he believes me when I tell him that, though.

"It's not your fault either," I tell him. He looks away, and I know he still doesn't believe that.

He turns and pulls out another box. One by one, he pulls out a whole army of small glass figurines - from angels to soldiers to leaping dolphins. "So you can practice while I'm gone," he explains. He sets them up in rows on my dresser. I look at them hard, willing them not to break when I touch them, but I know they will. That's just how strong I am. The longest I've ever held one without it shattering in my hand is 17 seconds. I have to be able to hold them for ten minutes before America's boss will even think about letting me out of my quarantine.

A small amused smile tugs at the corners of my dad's mouth as he looks at me. "Do I have something on my face?" I ask, confused until I feel the familiar lack of air pressing on my chest. America quickly fixes my cannula. I take some big gulps of air. "I'm just like Hazel Grace," I joke. "Except I don't give my cannula to random little girls at the mall."

He laughs. "I'm gonna miss you, little dude." He sweeps me into one more quick hug. "My little Rapunzel," he tells me, "you're not going to be in this tower forever. I promise."

As my bedroom door closes behind him, then the front door, I sigh and snuggle deeper into the covers. I don't mind being stuck in my room all the time, I really don't. But it does suck to have to be alone so often. My dad's the personification of a nation, and not just any nation, the most powerful one in the world, so it's not like I blame him or anything. Of course he has to go to a lot of meetings, and a lot of those are going to be halfway across the world. I'm pretty proud of him. But it would be nice to have him around more often.

As I reach for the top book - an English translation of Anna Karenina (since Russian is one of the few major European languages I haven't learned yet) - I think about my life, and how I came to be where I am.

I was the accidental product of a one-night stand, of which I know my dad has had many in four hundred years. It doesn't bother me. I know getting bored like the back of my hand, and four hundred years is a long time for a man not to be able to date. I never met my mom, at least not face-to-face. Even in the womb, I was too strong. All babies kick and punch, but when your baby already has the strength of a fully grown man, that can be a problem. America tells me he was called to the hospital one day. He thought it was a joke. But there I was, ten weeks premature and not really _born_ at all. My mother's corpse was lying next me, her uterus ripped open. I had ripped my way out of her as easily as tearing a piece of paper.

He named me Liberty Sophia Jones. He took me home, but it wasn't long before it became clear that I was not a normal little girl. As soon as I could walk, which was unnaturally early, I was doing things I should not have been able to do at that age - or ever, actually. When I was one year old, I couldn't reach the handle of the refrigerator, so I picked it up and shook it upside down until all the food fell out. America spent hours cleaning it all up. Only about a month later, I had a temper tantrum and threw a large and expensive couch from the late 1800s out of the window. The President - my dad's boss - was just walking up to the house. He wasn't injured, but badly shaken up, and that was how he found out about little Liberty Sophia.

A few days later, my dad was ordered to either kill me or keep me under quarantine. He was told that I was a threat to national security and that if he couldn't keep me under total control, I would be euthanized. I understand why he did it. If I were President, I wouldn't want a little girl with the power of a whole nation running around either. He had enough to handle dealing with my dad's antics. But as I grew up, from five to ten to fourteen, and the Presidents changed, never once did any of them come to see me. I'm policy to them, nothing more. None of them have ever actually met me. And that hurts.

When I was four years old, my dad was desperate to find something to fill my empty days. He wanted to make me happy, but since I could never leave my room, that was hard without resorting to "ice cream for breakfast" methods. So he tried entering the library, something he had never once done in almost four hundred years. He basically threw himself at the mercy of the librarians and begged for something that would entertain me.

I took to reading like a giant coconut crab to mirrored jewelry. I moved from Dr. Seuss to the Redwall books and on into Brothers' Grimm. I read the Hobbit when I was six and the Silmarillon when I was eight. By the time I was ten I had devoured the entire works of Jules Verne and was making my way through Pride and Prejudice. My dad doesn't read, so he never checks what I'm reading. I read Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies both when I was eleven and had nightmares for days. But nothing discouraged me from reading. I started really getting into nonfiction at about eleven and a half, and I read tons of science and history books. The only time my dad ever stopped me from reading anything was when he caught me with "The Radicalism of the American Revolution" by Gordon S. Wood. I think the title scared him, because he told me he wasn't comfortable with me reading Revolutionary War history until I was older. I told him repeatedly I wasn't thinking about him personally when I read it, but he never budged.

Now I just need to figure out a way to trick him into letting me read Marx.

When I was five, I read the story of Rapunzel and got really excited at how her story paralleled mine. For a few months America allowed me to believe that I was actually a long-lost princess, and even to this day he sometimes calls me Rapunzel. For now I sit in my room and read, and my dad is the only Prince Charming I have. But while I really don't mind being stuck in here, sometimes I dream of traveling the world with him.


End file.
